The Science
Songs of humpback whales were recorded at locations across the South Pacific in over 10 years of fieldwork by a research team of University of St Andrews, Scotland. The researchers discovered that the songs travelled in a regular west-to-east pattern over 10,000 km long each year, and that songs changed year-on-year over the course of the study. Previously this phenomenon was entirely unknown! Additionally, a fascinating 'greater movement' was observed. All of the males (only male humpbacks sing) select a new song each year, and the cultural ‘pulse’ of this sweep of new music occurrs regularly each year. Rhythms are present here in many ways. Only through detailed analyses of patterns and rhythms in each song were the researchers able to characterise and recognise different songs, and so identify 'repeat performances'. Sound form, repetition and periodicity - key characteristics of rhythm - were drawn from large numbers of field recordings. I encountered this research on annual migration of whale song when designing an exhibition about the group's research in 2019. This additionally inspired a poem on how I came to understand a diagram representing this migration. You can read the poem in Consilience and listen to it here, read by the poet himself.
This art-piece features new research on annual migration of whale songs and a majestic photograph by Nicolas Job.
The Artist
Steve Smart is a poet and artist living near Dundee, Scotland. He has long-standing interests in science and art. Places his poems have appeared include Atrium, Firth, The Poetry Shed, The Writer’s Café, The Curlew, Ink, Sweat and Tears, Poet’s Corner, and others. Some projects: filmmaker/co-ordinator for ‘Poems for Doctors, a collaboration between University of St Andrews and Scottish Poetry Library; art-science poetry film ‘TRAWL’ with Matthew Caley and Alex South for StAnza; online interactive poetry reading ‘THIS’ for StAnza/Book Week Scotland with Rebecca Sharp; ‘Drawing breath’ a collection of poems about trees, with artist Tansy Lee Moir.
Copyright statement. This work is published under the CC BY-NC-SA license